


Tea

by Natterina



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Drama, F/M, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-09
Updated: 2015-09-16
Packaged: 2018-04-19 23:30:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 4,929
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4765043
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Natterina/pseuds/Natterina
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Lavellan refuses to sleep once she realises the Dread Wolf haunts her dreams.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Tea

She starts drinking tea.

It starts two months after Solas' disappearance and their victory. Lavellan lays her head down to sleep one night and finds herself in a wooded area she doesn’t recognise: the sound of a flowing river reaches her ears, but it is too rhythmic, too constant, to be real. A bird chirps the same tune over and  _over_ , and in the corner of her eye she spots a movement that shouldn’t be.

She has grown up on tales of terror of the dark fur and six red eyes of the dread wolf, but the terror these tales invoke pale in comparison to the way her heart almost stops beating at the sight of the huge wolf lurking amongst the trees.

The wolf catches her gaze but does not move, merely watches as Lavellan stares in horror through the copse of trees. It is the worst of omens, she had been taught, to see the dread wolf in your dreams. Once you were prey to the dread wolf, they said, you were never safe again.

Turning on her heel and breaking the dark gaze, she flees. The presence is always there behind her as she runs, as though the distance between them never increases. She reaches the river and skids, stumbles forwards with a jerk, landing knee first on a sharp rock-

-and jolts up in bed shaking and smelling of the sweat of the fearful.

* * *

 It happens each night for the next three weeks. The same scene plays over and over, the beautiful clearing and the repetetive song of the bird, the river rushing in her ears as she turned to meet that six eyed stare. Lavellan starts drinking the tea in the hope that her shorter hours of sleep will push away any dreams that may come. Largely unsuccessful, she finds herself staring at the murals for long hours in the night. She stares intently at the one in the barn, of herself wrapped in the embrace of the wolf.

Had Solas  _known_? Was that why he had broken everything off, left her alone in the world with a shattered heart? Did he know she was  _cursed?_

It’s only when Leliana’s report comes in that everything clicks. She’s spent the last several hours staring at the painting, trying to decipher the meaning hidden behind it that she cannot grasp. The note comes, brief,  _centuries abandoned and no signs of any life for just as long_ , and a torrent of emotions hits her.

Anger, was he lying about his origins? But then confusion: Solas hadn’t lied about that, she could tell that much, but centuries old and abandoned strikes an uncomfortable chord in her mind that tells her she is missing a link.

Frustration, for an hour or two afterwards until she stares hard at the painting and wonders offhandedly why he never depicted himself holding her. Then-

It clicks with a wave of nausea so strong that she brings back up her lunch and empties it in the bucket next to the ladder. Her distress is so loud and soul-tearing that Cole comes to her in minutes. Watching from the doorway, he takes in her ragged breaths and the despair on her face.

“You love him. He loves you, but the pain is too strong, he needs to finish what he started. He never intended for you to find out.”

Lavellan doesn’t reply, but Cole sits with her for an hour whilst she gathers her thoughts and her knees to her chest. It is with a watery, bitter smile that she turns to him when he pulls her to her feet.

“I’ve been taught my entire life to walk quietly amidst the forests, to never attract the attention of the Dread Wolf. And I ran straight into his arms and gave him my heart.”

* * *

Knowing what she does, she downs the tea in pints. Lavellan paces back and forth in her room in the early hours of the morning to fend off the urge to sleep. She reads, draws, drinks and drinks the sweet tea in order to stay awake. Ponders for hours on the how and  _why_ , desperately trying to understand the reasons for Solas hiding his true identity and wondering what the Dread Wolf could possibly be up to. Why had he chosen  _her?_ What had she done to turn the head of a god?

On the morning after her second sleepless night, Dorian notices what she is up to and threatens to tell Cassandra. Lavellan threatens injury with a snap and almost a snarl, and he backs off with a warning for her to sleep.

The third day, she cannot pay attention in the meeting in the war room. Lavellan brushes it off as an illness and ignores the look in Dorian’s eyes. Her arm muscles jerk when drinking her tea and she spills the hot liquid down the front of her shirt. Dark eyes close momentarily when seated and she doesn’t realise she’d briefly fallen asleep until she notices the looks on her companions' faces.

The fourth day, when thinking of the horrible truth, she smashes a mirror with a book and nearly puts her foot through one of the windows in her room. Lavellan has a heated argument with a wolf in the corner for an hour before Cullen bursts in with his sword drawn and she realises she is hallucinating.

She will not sleep,  _will not_ return to the forests with the river and  _him_ , the Dread Wolf, at her heels. He does not get to check up on her, he does not get to watch her without revealing it is him. She is a shaking, tremoring whirlwind of fury at the deception and paranoia at the reasons he could be watching, and she will not listen to Dorian’s arguments or the suggestion that she  _sleep_ when the sixth day comes around.

The eighth day, Josephine quietly replaces her tea with a herbal sleeping draught which Dorian has cooked up. Lavellan doesn’t notice, so far gone in her sleep deprivation that she is, and she downs the teapot as usual.

Lavellan weeps desperately as she feels the sleep overcoming her: she clutches at her hair, knowing that this behaviour is not normal, it is insanity brought on by the lack of sleep but she  _doesn’t want to sleep._ Lavellan does not wish to face the wolf, does not wish to let him know she  _knows_.

And Solas  _must_ know she knows; if he has been trying to access her dreams for the past week, he must know that there could only be one reason why she would not sleep.

Lavellan crashes at her desk and opens her eyes in the now-familiar forest glade. Only this time, the wolf is gone and the elf stands in his place.


	2. The Fade

“I have not been able to find you for a week,  _vhenan_. Your dreams were lost to me.”

Lavellan keeps her eyes locked on the elf as he walks out from the copse of trees, with his hands clasped behind his back and moving with that easy grace she had so admired. It  _aches_ to look at him, to see him moving so unaffectedly, as though his heart doesn’t speed up at the sight and proximity of her. There is a fondness in his expression that tugs at her heartstrings.

She feels as though she will break apart the closer he gets, but Solas looks so calm and reserved that she grits her teeth hard in response. The click of her jaw at such pressure is heard only by herself.

“You were not injured, I hope.” The flicker of worry that briefly passes his face is enough for Lavellan to see through the façade. Somehow that hurts more, the knowledge that he will not lower his guard even after everything they’ve been through.

“Leliana found your village.” The words are out before she can stop them, but they’re  _enough_ to make Solas briefly stop as he moves before her. He is close now, close enough to smell his scent if she were in the physical world. The flicker of surprise is worth the accidental sharing of information.  
  
“I admit, I hoped it would take her much longer to find it.” He looks so  _certain_  that this is all she knows. “Do you think I lied?”

Lavellan cannot help it. She means to keep quiet, to keep her cards close to her chest but she had tried so desperately to avoid sleep and now he is  _here_ , and she is not prepared to speak with him when she is so  _angry_.

“You're  _Fen’Harel,_  you're the _Dread Wolf_.” The words feel like ash in her mouth as she speaks, a hard truth she has not wanted to face, as though never saying the name aloud avoided the truth. The words are meant to be bitter, but they come out almost a broken sob and Solas halts right in his tracks.

It is worth it,  _so_ worth the loss of her own composure to see the loss of his. The paling of his face and the brief look of  _horror_ that crosses it strikes a chord of satisfaction in her chest, and Lavellan nearly howls with manic laughter. It takes him a minute to pull himself back together, to rebuild the façade she had shattered in three hostile words. He may try to remain calm, but Lavellan has now seen his own pain, knows that he feels it too.

It is a small comfort to know she is not the only one in agony over this separation.

“I never intended for you to find out.” His words come unexpectedly, and Lavellan shakes her head with a look of pain etched on her face.

“I don’t care what you intended. I want to know  _why_. Why string me along the entire time? What does the  _Dread Wolf_ want, what did he want with me? What are you planning?” Lavellan, panicked, rambles towards the end but spits out her words hard.

Solas’ jaw tightens at her words, at her refusal to say his name and the inherited distaste she possesses for the words  _Dread Wolf_.

“You have no understanding of your own past, vhenan. You cannot comprehend. Your very idea of me is built on misunderstanding, on excuses made to try to understand my mistakes.”

“Then help me to understand. Correct the false image of Fen’Harel I have. Leaving me alone and with no answers only justifies every warning I’ve ever heard about you, Solas.”

Lavellan watches him process her words: she stays still as he paces before her, caught between what he  _wants_ to do and what he feels he must do.

“I cannot. I have much left to do, and telling you will only harden your resolve to find me. You cannot help me here, vhenan. Yet I could not resist…” His manner is too similar to the time they shared the kiss on her balcony. He is too open whilst being entirely too closed off. When he steps closer as though to kiss her Lavellan steps back with a noticeable, instinctive flinch. Solas touches nothing but the empty space between them.

Razor sharp and thick, the pain slams into both of them: Solas feels the sting of rejection and Lavellan the bitter hiss of her heart closing off to protect her.

He allows the look on his face to be fully observed by Lavellan: it is one of agony and regret, the face of a man torn between the woman he loves and the duty he feels bound to. Rather than move closer to offer comfort, she merely wraps her hand around his wrist.

“You have my heart and I’m not sure I will ever get it back, but you do  _not_ get to decide how and when it is appropriate to love me, nor can you only love me when the fancy takes you. You took every part of me and you changed it, my very identity: I am a Dalish without a clan and a Dalish with no faith in her own history. By the gods, how is any of this real?” Her hysterical, angry laugh pierces him to the bone, but he cannot have her. There is no way he would be unable to resist returning to his duty. His face calms, and he cuts himself off from her with the force of a door slamming shut on their relationship.

“I took your Vallaslin because it was a cruel mark of slavery.”

“And I let you do it! But even if we had gotten it wrong, we Dalish had given the marks new meaning, and I should have honoured that. How do I return to my clan now and explain why they’re missing? Every time I look in the mirror I am  _reminded_  that you are gone. Their absence is worse than any physical scar you could have left.” She barks out a laugh that quickly turns into a broken sob, but when he tries to move closer to her to comfort her she moves back again.

What makes it all infinitely worse, to Lavellan, is that she can  _see_ him breaking apart under the calm aura he is giving off, can see how much her words and her pain are hurting him, and yet he will  _not_ let himself show it to her.

The silence between them is suffocating and entirely unfamiliar. It is almost physical, like the choke of an overly-humid room. It presses down hard on her chest, and she finds that the birds have stopped tweeting and the river no longer sounds as pure as it once did. But he is steadfast and strong in his refusal to bend to her wishes. Here, in his element, he is proud and stubborn: he holds his head high despite the pain and stares straight at her, as though daring her to keep trying to make him break. Lavellan shakes her head with a sigh, all too aware that her eyes are full of bitter, angry tears.

“They will kill you. Whatever their use before, our kin has no need for them now.”

His eyebrows furrow slightly, trying to comprehend if she knows and  _how_ , but before he can speak she takes another step back away from him.

“I would have stayed with you, Solas. You had no right to make the choice for me. When you feel like you can explain it all to me, when you feel like you can  _love_ me without any sacrificial ‘kinder for me in the long run’ bullshit, then you may see me. Until then, I don’t want to see you.”

Lavellan does not even give him an opportunity to speak. She is exhausted emotionally and physically, her heart is drained and more than anything she is  _proud_ of being able to put her foot down. All too aware that both of their hearts are breaking –she can almost  _hear_ it in the wind through the trees- she walks away from him without a glance behind her. There is no closure, and there is  _so_ much more she wants to say, but in this she will take control and take her life back.

The fade changes around her the further she walks, the more she focuses, and his presence disappears from her consciousness.

Lavellan wakes up sobbing bitterly and Dorian, who has kept an eye on her as she slept, immediately puts her back into a dreamless sleep.


	3. Free

It is over a year later, in the heart of a beautiful and blazing summer, when Lavellan wakes up in the early hours of the morning feeling  _wrong_. There is a bitter taste to the back of her throat, and a nervous sweat to her skin that has nothing to do with the heat.

The wolf had appeared in her dreams every now and then the past two months, but it had only ever been a hovering presence that she couldn’t  _see_. He had indeed stayed away for the first ten months. But this dream, the one she feels has jolted her awake, had shown the wolf in all his glory.

Him, Fen’Harel, at full strength. She wonders what it could mean.

The taste in the back of her throat will not subside, and there is something  _somewhere_ in the air that makes the hairs on her arms stand on end. It is a probing presence that engulfs the entire room. It is seeking, searching for something that Lavellan feels it cannot find. There is a desperate emotion behind it, a need to discover that she can’t quite understand. 

Her mind immediately jumps to Solas, but the presence is too unfamiliar; it does not bear the taste or burn of his magic that she had become so familiar with. But it is connected, that much she  _knows_. 

She is unnerved and unsettled, laying there in the bed with the subtle pull of whatever it is –possibly another’s magic?- in the room with her. Feeling a desperate need for air, Lavellan leaves her bed for the balcony and is not surprised to find Cole standing there looking out to the valley.

She stands next to him, still unable to escape the  _wrong_ in the air, and leans against the railings. Cole doesn’t look at her, instead stares hard out into the distance with a look of concentration on his features.

“It is not only you feeling it: the other elves can feel it too. They are confused. I sense  _something_. He has been working tirelessly and now he is  _relieved_ …” There is a worried look to his face that unnerves her even more: he is reaching out, probing against the presence that he can feel only through her and the other elves in the keep. Lavellan feels the two presences in her mind acutely before Cole's is harshly forced out by the other. His sharp gasp in the warm air chills her to the bone.

“They are free.”


	4. Reunion

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Solas returns to Skyhold after freeing the Evanuris.

Cole stays on her balcony for weeks, staring out across the mountains and searching for something she cannot see.

Lavellan brings him food, drapes a fur throw around his shoulders on the nights where winter’s chill is creeping through the autumn, but whenever she asks him specifically about  _why_ he stands there his only response is “he is coming.”

It is unsettling; the magic that has filled the air the past month has been confirmed to be felt only by the elves. It is the tingling shiver of a brief chill, constant and prickly, and Lavellan can only wonder at what Solas could have possibly done.

For she knows the fault lies with Solas: the wolf had slipped so easily into her dreams despite her having banned his access after he disappeared. The wolf, stronger than ever, prowled softly and had rested his heavy head so sorrowfully in her hands that she knew he had to have done  _something_.

The feeling is like a door opening, but no matter how hard Leliana’s spies or the Inquisition mages work, no one can understand  _why_ it is only the elves which feel the strange magic. Lavellan can often feel it prodding at her, almost as if it is assessing her and trying to figure her out.  _That_ presence is not the Dread Wolf.

The thought of Solas is an old wound to which she has applied far too much salve in the hope of pretending the pain is non-existent. It is a slow and steady ache, far less painful than it was the day he left but still something she cannot discuss or think of too long. Lavellan can move on in time, but for the moment it feels like a hurdle she does not have the strength to pass. She is too busy with the Inquisition, she doesn’t have  _time_ to sift through her feelings and try to move on.

So when Cole says  _he_ is coming, rather than  _they_ (for she knows Solas’ plan, it was obvious once his true identity came to light) she knows exactly who he means and tries to think on  _why_  he is returning after more than a year with no word.

Ironically then, despite the foreknowledge, Lavellan is not actually in the keep when Solas arrives. She is far off in the Hinterlands fighting a growing nest of Venatori when she gets the message from their spymaster. They spend two more days eradicating the nest before returning to Skyhold, reaching the keep two weeks later.

He is in the prison infirmary when she arrives –and Lavellan is going to  _punch_ whoever thought that was a good idea; he might be an asshole but he was a member of the Inquisition, not a petty criminal- and Josephine gives her the rundown.

“Wounded quite badly Inquisitor. The wounds are magical in nature but the mages cannot figure out  _what_ magic inflicted them. It is almost as though it is a new branch of magic.”

Lavellan falters as she walks down the steps to the prison with Josephine. Understanding and fear flickers across her face in a way that makes Josephine want to curl away in the opposite direction.

“Not new, Josephine. Forgotten.”

Josephine stares at Lavellan in response, curious and slightly confused to the  _how_ when they reach the prison infirmary. Striding in, Lavellan makes for the only occupied bed on the left and stops at the foot of it.

Sixteen months. It’s been sixteen months since she last saw him physically, since she last saw his now-bruised face. His eyes are open, watching her carefully as she assesses him. Solas doesn’t  _appear_ to be any different physically: he is not skinnier, there are no bags under his eyes and apart from the cut on his upper lip and the bruise on his cheekbone, he looks much the same as he did the day he left.

Lavellan can sense the magic-inflicted wounds on him, however. If she reaches out enough, the pressure points on his body and the crook of his joints light up like a parade, as though someone had tried to use magic and force to snap his bones and joints but did not succeed. The magic bears that same prickly feeling that has been haunting her for weeks: Lavellan realises immediately then that the wounds have been inflicted by the same person –if at all humanoid.

Josephine stands a few steps behind her, parchment and quill in hand, and behind her stand two of the Inquisition soldiers. Lavellan is still in full armour, her staff slung over her shoulder; if Solas wishes to flee even when chained to the bed, he will not get past them.

“You succeeded. You brought back the ‘gods’ we did not need. I’m guessing they weren’t happy you locked them away in the first place.” Lavellan’s tone is almost,  _almost,_ mocking, but she reigns it in with clenched teeth and a polite, inquisitive smile and watches as Solas processes her words. He is calm and holding himself well, as he always did. Proud and all-knowing.

 “I have been trying for centuries to undo my mistake-“

“To what end, Solas? To bring back the immortal gods for the elves? From everything you have told me it sounds as though they were as bad as Tevinter. Did you hope to plunge us into another war with the humans? My people are scattered, there are so few of us left, and you brought back a group of mages  _you admitted were tyrants_.”

Solas looks so calm as she shouts at him that Lavellan wants to shake him, to wipe that look of arrogance and omniscience off his face.

“I found a way to bring back the Evanuris without destroying the veil: I had to do it for the people, vhenan.”

“ _Which_ people, Solas? The elves who still sleep in all those ruins accessible only by the eluvians? Or your people  _now_ , the elves in the alienages who cannot fight and the Dalish who have spent centuries gaining knowledge on the old gods, who will suffer the most to learn all they thought as true is false? Our golden age is  _gone._ Why are you even  _here_?” Lavellan steps closer to the bed as she speaks: Solas tenses slightly, tightens his jaw as she moves to his side and sits on the stool next to the bed.

 He takes a moment to speak, thinking on a way to answer without making her angrier. The tension in the room is palpable: the soldiers at the back are doing their best to keep an eye on him without looking like they’re listening, Josephine is hurriedly scribbling down a note to Leliana and Lavellan is so furious, so confused, that her magic is leaking out and unsettling the three others.

“They are not yet at full strength, and I do not know how long it will take for them to reach it. But once they do, they  _will_ come here to find me through you. You bear the marks of my magic, the only mortal in this world to do so. If you have felt them analysing you, it is for this reason.”

Lavellan lightly touches her face, the bare cheeks where once her vallaslin proudly proclaimed her Dalish identity. Her lips curl into a sneer.

“So you came here to what? Protect me? I neither want nor need your protection,  _dread wolf_.” The words are hissed in that same bitter, choked tone as so many months ago. It is meant to hurt him, and if Solas could not sense the aching pain bleeding out in her magic then he would almost believe her hatred was true.

“You are still angry, and you are hurt. But you do not understand-“

“- _Then help me understand-“_

 _“_ I will. I shall show you everything, vhenan.”

“Do  _not_ call me vhenan. You took away your right to call me that when you made a decision for me that you had no right in doing.” And  _there_ it is, the slightest hint of pain that flickers across his face before he reigns it in and tenses, tightening his jaw and refusing to look away from her face. He is steadfast in his belief that he was right to do what he did, that  _he_ knows best, but he cannot ignore the pain of that day in the fade when he took her vallaslin.

Solas stays silent. Lavellan thinks hard on what to do: if she lets him go she has a feeling he will come back one way or another, or leave completely and never return, and she is not certain that is what she wants. In the midst of her fury she has no wish to even look at him, but she knows once morning comes and she is calm she might regret sending him away.

If she lets him stay, she risks making the same mistake again. She may trust his honeyed words and not think about any other motivations: for all she knows, he could be lying now. But keeping him as a prisoner would create more problems than it would solve, and she would likely end up releasing him anyway and end up in the same situation as now.

All the while Solas watches her, observes with the same intensity and hidden want as he did during his time in the Inquisition. Time has not dimmed his affection, even if it has honed her distrust of him.

The silence is long. Josephine has half a mind to leave, but Lavellan  _needs_ her there in case things get too emotional and she knows Leliana would not let her live it down if she skipped out the dramatic ending of Lavellan and Solas’ reunion. Lavellan is thinking hard, and when she takes a deep breath as she comes to her decision, she looks as though her emotions are in tatters and her soul in agony.

“You may stay, Solas. Once your wounds are healed, you are to report to Leliana and Josephine and tell them  _everything_. About locking those mages, gods, _things_  away and releasing them, why you did it, how you did it, and everything you can tell us about the past: memories and everything you found in the fade. Then you will report to Cassandra and Cullen and tell them everything you know about their magic and the magic that is currently affecting all the elves.”

Lavellan stands from her seat quickly, eager to go. “Once you are done with that, you are to report to me and tell me all that you have told Leliana and Josephine, and Cassandra and Cullen. If I find any discrepancies, any hint that you might be lying to me, so help me I will throw you from the balcony and I will have no regrets.”

Lavellan marches off with the feeling that her chest is collapsing inwards. It is hard to breathe and the aching pain that had plagued her at the thought of Solas explodes to an echo of the raw anguish she had felt the day she realised that Solas was Fen’Harel, that he was truly gone.   
  
Solas can see that pain in the rigidity of her posture as she leaves, can see it in the clenching of her fists and the furrowing of her eyebrows as she marches away without a look back. He is not one to hope blindly, but her pain gives him hope that her forgiveness can be gained, the pain of his decision undone. 

But trouble brews on the horizon.

**Author's Note:**

> Moved this over from my Tumblr account :)


End file.
